| Show PIWISHIXG CHILDREN How it Should and How It Should Not Be Dune From the Journal of Ethics The abuse of punishment is more dangerous dan-gerous than the greatest indulgence At the present day we have outgrown the harsh methods of the past Corporal punishment Is almost entirely excluded from our schools The hurt occasioned by corporal punishment is not to the body but to the mind It Is after all the mind that is struck But this is not all In appealing to the mind wo treat the child as a rational creature This is a claim of the child that we cannot Ignore Corporal punishment punish-ment is onesided Besides corporal punishment pun-ishment as Herbert Spencer has shown is associated with man in the childhood of the world It is the savage who has not patience to reason or explain who strikes Corporal punishment can seldom sel-dom be administered without passion When we show excitement we give signs of weakness Then the boy or girl becomes conscious of a power over us This Is a temptation to youth The danger of corporal punishment therefore is that we can seldom administer admin-ister it without losing our head On the other hand we cannot appeal to the reason rea-son without becoming more reasonable Besides corporal punishment there are other punishments that are not justifiable justifi-able To shut up a child In a dark room is to spur its imagination Into wild fati tiles Darkness Is a bad companion it will contract and terrify the child Denying Deny-ing children the necessary amount of i sleep or food exposing them to the inclemency in-clemency of the Weather Withholding from them for too long a time the tokens of affection treating them as strangers or as enemies or ignoring them altogether alto-gether these are measures that do more harm than good Punishment should be of such a nature that if necessary the parents may share it with tho children The child must Know that It cannot suffer alone physically physi-cally much less morally Its suffering brings suffering to others This is the lesson that will develop the social element ele-ment in the child In the second place we must correct the faults of the child oy Its virtues that is to say the strong qualities of the mind must spur tho weak faculties into play If a child bd physically strong but morally weak let the parent hold up to view the two sides of its nature until tha physically strong child shall be ashamed of Ha moral cowardice |
